Gender and Evidence in Family Law Reform: A Case Study of Quantification and Anecdote in Framing and Legitimising the ‘Problems’ with Child Support in Australia

Micro-aggressions, single mothers and interactions with government workers: The case of Australia’s child support bureaucracy

“…DHS-CS is a black box in terms of worker experiences, but given the reach of neoliberalism and new managerialism into other government bureaucracies, it is appropriate to start from the presumption that changes focused on individuals or organizational practices are unlikely to alter the expression of discourse in interaction. However, feminist scholars highlight the challenges of achieving policy or legal reform in a context that privileges masculine interests (Cook and Natalier, 2013) and the ‘stock stories’ (Cook and Natalier, 2016: 520) and ‘bitter tales’ (Graycar, 2000: 746) that centre those interests. Carol Smart’s (1986: 109) comment that feminists are ‘running hard to stand still’ remains a pertinent reminder of the challenges of effecting structural change.…”

“…While changes to formal policy are subject to debate, the practices through which policy is implemented typically occur without public oversight despite their impact on people’s lives – Brodkin (2015: 2) describes this as the ‘missing middle’ of policy research. In Australia research on the gendered politics of child support reform (Cook and Natalier, 2013, 2016) has not been matched by a similar focus on the administration of these policies. Introducing this focus is necessary because the gap between policy and practice can be large (Cook et al, 2015a, 2015b).…”

The Forms and Functions of Child Support Stigma

“…For their new partner, women often rejected the policy imperative that biological fathers should continue to provide child support for their nonresident children when a new breadwinner was in the household. At the same time, Dianne and other re-partnered women often critiqued their own ex-partner’s failure to support their children, having “been on both sides.” Politically, however, in Australian child support policymaking, the new partners of child support payers have been instrumental in promoting men’s interests to policymakers (Cook and Natalier 2016). In our study, we found that such women’s interests aligned closely with their new partner, rather than showing solidarity with separated mothers.…”

“…Fathers, as payers of child support, are particularly vocal about the use of “their” money, using child support as a tool to enact their financial authority across households (Municio 2013; Natalier 2018) and agitate for child support policy reforms that buttress these concerns (Cook and Skinner 2019b). Politicians have also been receptive to fathers’ concerns in both the United Kingdom and Australia (Cook and Natalier 2013; 2016; Fehlberg and Maclean 2009; Fogarty and Augoustinos 2008), ultimately seeing the removal of child support from the benefit system in the United Kingdom and giving fathers greater control and authority over payments in Australia (Cook and Natalier 2013).…”

“…A “mother blaming” rhetoric, identified by Kathryn Fogarty and Martha Augoustinos (2008:553) in their discursive psychological analysis of the Australian 2003 inquiry process, informed subsequent child support policy reforms, with some of the politicians engaged in the inquiry actively targeting mothers. Research on the conduct and outcomes of the 2003 inquiry identified how committee members dismissed mothers’ evidence while fathers’ accounts were actively encouraged and taken up in policy (Cook and Natalier 2014, 2016). The resultant policy changes strengthened the private and “special” nature of child support money, including increasing fathers’ control over what they would provide and how it could be spent.…”